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Archives for May 2009

Blogging revenue: are you seeing recovery?

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Many online publishers have seen a downturn in revenue over the past couple of quarters, with some niches more badly hit than others.

Advertisers are either scarcer, or they’re not paying as much for advertising space.

Yet I’m noticing that some “set and forget” advertising models (such as Google AdSense and Chitika’s Premium ads) are showing some positive growth.

Growth isn’t explosive, but it does appear to be happening. Though the current economic climate is still challenging, the new financial year may well be encouraging advertisers to spend budget and seek sponsorship deals.

Do you generate revenue from your blog, and if so have you noticed any signs of recovery? I’d be interested to hear your experiences.

Where have all the @replies gone?

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I’ve been fond of using Twitter not only as a means to shout out the latest happenings in my life, and not only to converse with online friends, but also to watch for trends and information that people may be discussing. I know I still have a lot to learn in efficiently using it to mine information, with all the different tools out there. But one basic feature that I know a lot of people appreciate is being able to listen in to conversations among friends.

For instance, one friend can send a @reply to another friend, and I get it on my update. Perhaps I can reply with my own two cents, too. But Twitter has just (suddenly?) changed the system, such that you can only listen in to @replies if both sender and intended recipient are in your follow list.

Twitter’s blog says:

We’ve updated the Notices section of Settings to better reflect how folks are using Twitter regarding replies. Based on usage patterns and feedback, we’ve learned most people want to see when someone they follow replies to another person they follow—it’s a good way to stay in the loop. However, receiving one-sided fragments via replies sent to folks you don’t follow in your timeline is undesirable. Today’s update removes this undesirable and confusing option.

I personally use a very effective filtering system to weed out messages I deem not so useful. This filtering system I use is my own brain! So I tend to agree with TechCrunch here that users should be given the choice to follow all @replies by friends, including those that are one-sided. The issue here is that Twitter has removed the option altogether, and has reverted everyone back to only being able to see @replies where both sender and intended recipient are on your followed list.

I do hope twitter does follow through on its promise to introduce “better ways to discover and follow interesting accounts as [they] release more features.”

Priorities for online publishers: Content and Infrastructure

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In these current tough times, it can be tempting to cut back on the costs associated with web hosting and content production.

However, I’d suggest that these two areas are the most vital for any online business whose primary purpose is information publishing.

Without content, visitors have no reason to continue to come to your site.

Without infrastructure, visitors will find it difficult to access your site, even if they want to.

You may think that your archives will sustain you, or that your hosting is perfectly adequate because you’ll never have to handle the “Digg effect”, but complacency could still cost you.

It may be that you need to change the type of content you output, but don’t simply cut back output altogether because your presence and reputation will almost certainly suffer.

It’s worth comparing web hosting deals to ensure that you’re getting the best deal. Recently I moved web hosting companies – not because the original company was particularly bad, but because I effectively got a better system for around half the monthly price.

If you really don’t have the spare capital to invest in content or decent hosting then you may have no choice but to cut back.

Nevertheless, I’d suggest you take a serious look at what changes you can make to streamline your content production and get reliable, solid hosting before considering cutbacks.

When we emerge on the other side of this crisis, your online business will be all the stronger for it.

Disclaimer: I’m painting a positive-thinking picture here, based on my observations of companies that have scaled back, and on my own experience of cutting costs without compromising quality. This isn’t legal or financial advice, and sometimes the right course of action is to cut back.

A Better Way To FollowFriday On Twitter

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Do you use Twitter? If so, chances are good that on Fridays, you see a number of people sending out messages which contain half of the users they are following on Twitter followed by #FollowFriday at the end. I’ve participated in one or two of these events and I don’t think they are doing the trend justice as much as they once were. As Andrew Mueller points out, it’s turned into a giant promotional orgy with no substance.

I think it’s better if people would recommend one person at a time that we should be following and then provide substance with that recommendation. This means recommendations will be of higher quality and everyone wins.

So if you participate on Twitter and want to revive the spirit of FollowFriday, use the hashtag #rec which stands for recommendation. The short length of the tag provides ample opportunity for you to provide reasons as to why we should be following that person.

Someone Else Claiming CAPTCHAS Are Dead

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Craig Butler of SitPoint.com has published an article which outlines his reasoning as to why CAPTHCAS have finally reached their end of life. Captchas are usually the first lines of defense for web forms to combat against automated bots/scripts who’s sole purpose is to spam. Here is the list Craig has for why Captchas need to be replaced with something that works.

  1. Accessibility
  2. Not A Turing Test
  3. All CAPTCHAS Can Be Cracked
  4. CAPTCHAS Are Getting More Difficult
  5. CAPTCHAS Measure Ability

I agree with practically every point mentioned in the article. I for one have a difficult time filling out CAPTCHAS let alone someone without sight, or hearing. At least on my blog, Akismet has been doing a great job allowing me to the keep the comment form Captcha free. I don’t know what the answer is to replace the Captcha system which is why I’ll be keeping an eye out for the follow up post which will include a set of alternatives to help spot hackers and bots without disrupting real users.

Treasure Theme

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Treasure Theme for WordPress preview imageEver wanted to explore for hidden treasure as a kid? Well, most of us have longed for, and still do long for, this kind of adventure. Most would keep other sorts of treasures in all sorts of places, in their proverbial treasure chests. Love letters are kept in drawers. Photos in photo albums. Toys in toy closets. Blog posts, of course, precious that they are, are kept online.

But what if you can keep your blog posts in “treasure chests” of their own? This is what Performancing’s Treasure Theme for WordPress is all about. Each blog post is kept enclosed in its own box–or what you can call its treasure box. This is very appropriate for bloggers who want to consider each and every published post as precious ad gold and gems.

Another classic from Performancing Themes for WordPress, the Treasure Theme is a collaboration with designer Randa Clay, who has done various other Splashpress Media designs.

Treasure Theme is optimized for use with WordPress 2.7 and above. It supports threaded comments, post classes, image captions and gallery classes introduced in this version of WordPress.

Download the Treasure Theme for WordPress here.
See a live preview here.

Did Twitter Kill RSS Readers?

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There seems to be a meme traveling across the web about whether or not RSS is dead and if it has been replaced by Twitter. The answer is no. While I can admit to not using my FeedReader as much since following some key figures on Twitter, RSS is still a staple fold for keeping an eye on things outside of the Twittersphere. Because I’ve paid special attention to who I follow on Twitter, I don’t have to worry so much about unwanted noise or seeing a bunch of links unrelated to what I write about. While I would still like to have stronger filtering, I’ve managed to simply deal with it and hone in on the good stuff.

However, to limit yourself to Twitter instead of RSS is a dumb move because your feedreader provides you the opportunity to see the bigger picture. You get to see many viewpoints instead of just one. You get to see trends outside of what people are talking about. Instead of updates or cool posts from here or their on the web, your feedreader serves the purpose of bringing all sorts of great information from across the web to you in one location.

So don’t let anyone fool you. RSS is not dead.

Ubiquity on the Internet

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There’s a saying that you only exist if you can be found on the first or even second page of Google. I want to go as far as saying that on the Internet, your brand (meaning the product you market, or even something as personal as your blog) should be ubiquitous. In trying to explain to a friend who does marketing his company, I tried removing him from the paradigm that “we want people to come to our site and maybe use online ads as a drive to site effort.”

Sure, that may be a sound strategy … 5 years ago. The age of social media has allowed brands to be as ubiquitous as the bloggers who advocate them. So yeah, a good old corporate site won’t hurt, but why aren’t brand managers using services like Twitter, Plurk, Flickr, Facebook to full advantage? As a marketer, one good piece of advice to remember is that these tools — social media, web 2.0 or what have you, should be used as landing pages for your main site. Develop these tools well, and you will see your main site grow. I find it funny that advertisers still don’t make best use of these FREE tools and decide instead to spend ad dollars. I’m not saying these guys shouldn’t be advertising — I’m just saying that they aren’t being ubiquitous.